Estimating the Impact of Incarceration on Subsequent Offending Trajectories: Deterrent, Criminogenic, or Null Effect
Year: 2007
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Despite record levels of incarceration and much discussion about the role that incarceration plays in influencing criminal activity, there does not yet exist a sound knowledge base about the extent to which incarceration exhibits a criminogenic, deterrent, or null effect on subsequent individual offending trajectories.This is an unfortunate happenstance since classic criminological theories make vastly different predictions about the role of punishment in altering criminal activity, and life-course criminologists suggest that life events can materially influence subsequent criminal activity.Using arrest histories of a sample ofprisoners released from state prisons in 1994 and followed for three years post-release, this Article seeks to address the impact of incarceration on subsequent offending trajectories.Results indicate that a comparison of the counterfactual and actual offending patterns suggests that most releasees were either deterred from future offending (40%) or merely incapacitated by their incarceration (56%).Only about 4% had a criminogenic effect.Future theoretical and empirical research directions are outlined * The authors would like to thank Shawn Bushway
Source: bepress Legal Repository
Authors: Avinash Singh Bhati, Alex R. Piquero
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funder: U.S. Department of Justice
OpenAlex ID: W1488082088